Issue Position: Reduced Spending

Issue Position

Runaway federal spending has been perhaps the largest failure by the previous Republican Congress. Between 1996 and 2006, the number of wasteful pork-barrel projects increased from about 1,000 to more than 10,000. I believe that Washington, D.C.'s inability or unwillingness to control government spending was a primary factor in what led Republicans to defeat in 2006 and I believe a renewed commitment to fiscal responsibility will lead Republicans back.

In Congress, I will work my hardest to reduce spending and slow the growth of a bloated federal bureaucracy. One of the most frustrating things I've seen Democrats and Republican do over the past decade is spend your hard-earned tax dollars on frivolous and wasteful projects. In 2006, Democrats, along with Nancy Boyda, promised to reform the wasteful earmark process, but their "reforms" were cosmetic and have done little to reduce wasteful spending. Instead, the Democrats requested the second highest number of earmarks in history!

Real reforms to the earmark system will not harm the progress of legitimate projects, but it will end the use of you money for projects that Congress voted to fund in recent years like a bridge to nowhere, a teapot museum, and a study on the DNA of bears. I simply refuse to believe that our federal government should have any role in spending your money on projects such as these. Only real reform will limit future wasteful spending and that's why I signed the Citizens Against Government Waste Earmark Reform Pledge, a pledge to reform a broken system.

The former Republican-controlled Congress got in the habit of borrowing and spending and the current Democrat-controlled Congress are back to their ways of taxing and spending. Both are a recipe for fiscal and economic disaster, and are habits I will work to break in Congress.

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